This is in efforts to persuade or guide some lady Aggies to reframe* from a new-found fashion: stretchy pants. To enlighten those who do not understand the term "stretchy pants," these are tight, spandex-like pants (i.e. thermal athletic pants).

Dude doesn’t even know what leggings are called, so why should I take his advice on fashion? Oh, wait, it’s not advice, it’s “guidance,” because women are incompetent children.

I am in support of comfort. However, there needs to be limitations. These secondary epidermis clothes do not leave much to the imagination. I would like to inform the Aggie ladies that this choice of clothing reveals every dimple and crevice below the body’s transverse plane. I am assuming Jack Black’s character from "Nacho Libre" would appreciate the style, (if readers are not aware of Nacho Libre and his stretchy pants, they can be viewed via Youtube). Please, for the sake of modesty, put some clothes on that resemble more than panty hose. In this case, the saying "less is more" does not apply.

Way to make the assumption that women dress entirely to impress men, Reich! Obviously women can’t wear leggings (or anything) because it makes them feel confident, because it’s warm or breezy, because it’s their favorite color, because it reflects their personality. In fact, Reich warns women against dressing for comfort; after all, it can lead to sluttiness! And there is nothing worse than having some men think you’re a slut. NOTHING.

Four women wearing leggings as pants, so immodest! All used with Creative Commons license from Flickr. Click photos for originals.

Protip, dudes: If you find yourself compelled to tell half of your university’s population (or half the world) what to wear or not wear, don’t. It’s none of your damn business, and it makes you look like a presumptuous dick.

The original whores wearing leggings as pants: fashionable men in medieval England. From Wikimedia Commons.

*Yes, I noticed he used the wrong word here. He meant “refrain.” And I also noticed he didn’t use “i.e” competently. But I don’t like correcting grammar as if it is the same thing as engaging with his argument. His writing is terrible, but his condescension and misogyny is much worse.

I see this coming up again and again in discussions about pop culture; this is an attitude I myself once embraced and espoused, like it was a badge of honor to dislike most female characters. I thought I was being oh-so-edgy and critiquing female characters when really I was engaging in an age-old form of misogyny, where people prove how progressive they are by saying they hate women.

I know, it sounds weird. But there is a thing that happens where some feminists declare themselves firmly to be ‘one of the guys.’ I’m not sure if it’s a defensive tactic, designed to flip some attitudes about feminism and feminists, or if there is a genuine belief that being feminist means ‘being one of the guys.’ Once you are ‘one of the guys,’ you of course need to prove it by bashing on women, because this is what ‘guys’ do, yes? So you say that you don’t really ‘connect with’ or ‘like’ female characters you encounter in pop culture.

If feminists feel pressure to be accepted as "one of the guys," imagine how geek women feel, particularly early in their lives, when they often feel isolated from one another.

This tendency to dislike female character reminds me of another "being one of the guys" strategy: I often meet women who tell me proudly, "I just don’t get along with women.* All of my best friends have been guys." These women also often think that this fact actually makes them progressive (because nothing’s more radical than failing to create female-centric relationships!). And most of the women I’ve known who say this are geeks. It’s actually one of the reasons it took so long for me to become friends with geeks, because "I don’t get along with women" is dealbreaker for me. Any woman who says this is either a) telling me that I can never expect more than perfunctory friendship with them or b) inviting me to denigrate women as well, as the basis of our friendship. And no thank you.

Which is not, of course, to say that these ladies are horrible people. Women who refuse to connect with other women, fictional or real, are not causing the problem, but perpetuating it, because they’ve bought patriarchal narratives about women hook, line, and sinker. They seek connections with men, because men are the rational, smarter set, and by doing so they feel required to malign their own genders, because, as smith points out, "bashing on women" is just what dudes do. But loving other women, connecting with other women, is one of the most radical feminist act one can perform. And I think that goes for fictional characters, too, especially since I know that my personal path to feminism would have been greatly hindered if it weren’t for Xena and Buffy.

So it hurts my heart when geeks inexplicably "hate" female characters on geek shows. Indeed, the two examples smith uses are actually from geeky/fantasy/SF shows: True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems like misogynist write-offs of female characters are disturbingly prevalent in allegedly progressive fan cultures (like the overtly feminist Buffy), and the ones that have been pissing me off lately are, of course, Doctor Who-related. A sizeable part of DW and Torchwood fandoms has a lot of ire for female characters from these series. The two I want to focus on, in part because hatred of these characters is well-represented in both fan communitities, are Gwen Cooper (from Torchwood) and River Song (from Doctor Who).

[Spoilers for season 5 of Doctor Who and Torchwood: Children of Earth (season 3) below the fold.]

[Trigger warning for imagined violence against female characters, slut-shaming, and other misogynistic language.]

Now, Gwen is not perfect on this show. For that matter, neither is anyone else. Everyone on this show is flawed, most of them quite seriously. Under the stress and weirdness of working for Torchwood, Gwen is dismissive of her partner, Rhys, and then cheats on him with a fellow Torchwood employee, Owen. And, throughout the entire series, she’s in love with Jack (who the fuck isn’t), but marries Rhys anyway. So, Gwen has some personal failings. Compared with the failings of the other major characters, in particular Owen’s unfeeling libertine ways and Jack’s stringing along Ianto and sacrificing his own grandson, however, Gwen is about right in the middle of the Torchwood-employees-are-bad-people bell curve. However, unlike most of the other characters, a sizeable minority of fans violently hate her, to the extent that there is an Anti-Gwen Alliance on LJ, complete with youtube video. People call her things like "a selfish stupid slutty little gap toothed bitch who should die a very painfull death." So what the fuck is up?

She’s ugly. If you think this, and also think that it is a legitimate reason to hate a (female) character, you’re a douche. I mean, not only areyouwrong, judging female characters solely on whether you want to fuck them or whether they live up to unrealistic standards of beauty makes you a misogynist, even if you’re a lady. (More on this with River Song.)

She’s whiny. From smith:

People who claim not to like female characters often have difficulty explaining why exactly. Take a character like Buffy, who is called ‘whiny’ for having opinions and not being shy about them, for occasionally being vulnerable and frightened and sad. It couldn’t possibly be because her friends repeatedly fuck her over, she was yanked out of heaven to save her friends’ butts, she’s been burdened with huge responsibility, and she’s constantly taken for granted, right? She couldn’t possibly have any reason to be angry and to speak up about it, just like Tara has no reason to be angry either. Nope, they’re both just whiny women. Write off, move on.

THIS. People who call Gwen whiny don’t feel the need to explain why. And if they do, they hate Gwen because she acts like a woman (because, ew, who would want that?). From a Facebook thread about hating Gwen:

Yeah, I don’t really watch Dr. Who, but I got the impression that Rose was a lot like Gwen, and I can’t for the life of me understand why the writers like characters like this. I just find them so irritating. I don’t get why women have to be all sappy in shows. Why can’t there be more women like Xena or Ellen from Supernatural, strong without the sappy. I tend to like women characters better when writers don’t feel like they have to make them all soft and whiney, because I just don’t think that’s really embracing feminism. It’s keeping girls in the whiney category and keeping guys as the strong ones who don’t whine a lot.

In other words, if producers would make female characters MORE LIKE MEN, then they would be less annoying. That, apparently, is feminism. Women who have feelings and express them are "all sappy" and "soft." Because, gross, right? smith again:

Much of this baseless hatred of women characters seems to be a reflection of internalized self-hatred. Being ‘emotional,’ for example, is a trait that society says is not acceptable for women, and thus expressions of emotion on the part of women characters are condemned. People will sometimes hide behind claims of ‘stereotyping’ to criticize women characters, arguing that the characters reinforce problematic ideas about women while little realizing that they themselves are reinforcing those ideas; people who claim that characters like Tara [from Buffy] are ‘too emotional’ and that this feeds ideas about ‘hysteria’ and women don’t seem to recognize that they are reflecting a commonly held social attitude, that women should not be emotional. They ignore the very real reasons for Tara to be upset; seeing your lover shot and lying in a pool of his own blood, for example, is a very emotional experience.

Calling women who express their emotions sappy and whiny doesn’t make you a feminist. Capitulating to sexist stereotypes about proper behavior, painting everything "feminine," like having emotions, as "soft" and "sappy," as not legitimate, is exactly the opposite of feminism, and doesn’t do women any favors.

She’s a slut. This one is particularly precious, because most Gwen-haters love Jack, the sluttiest** of all DW-related characters. People seem personally offended that Gwen is a threat to Jack and Ianto’s relationship (obviously, before Ianto died in CoE), as if that particular flirtation is all about Gwen being a home-wrecker. We see that Jack both initiates and encourages their flirtations, as well as his tendency to rather unfeelingly brush off Ianto whenever Ianto tries to define their relationship or ask for committment from Jack. The image that Gwen-haters seem to have, of a happy, committed gay couple and a bitch trying to wreck it, is a constructed fantasy, one created for the sole purpose of maligning Gwen.

She’s smug. Don’t women know they should never act like they know anything? Gwen is often accused of acting too much like a know-it-all:

Can they kill Gwen in episode one? Please? I promise I’ll watch all 10 episodes live if they do.

I just can’t stand the smug bitch. Oh, look at me. I never get hurt, am loved by everybody, and have an adorable caring husband who loves me unconditionally even though I’m a raging knowitall bitch. Fuck. I’d prefer Ianto’s sister coming back to join the force over more Gwen.

Anyone want to play a guessing game? Who else can we think of that never gets hurt, is loved by everybody, and has an adorable caring partner who loves hir despite hir serious committment issues? Oh RIGHT. Jack fucking Harkness. And while he certainly gets his share of being called "smug" on the internet, it’s not by people who call Gwen smug. It’s cool for him to act like he knows everything (and, of course, he does act like that), presumably because his penis gives him magical not-annoying powers. This is the real problem with hating Gwen: she and Jack are quite alike, and not by accident. But behaviors we find acceptable in men are simply not okay in women. And even if Gwen doesn’t act like Jack, and goes around acting like a lady with her lady-feelings, she’s still considered whiny and annoying by the fans. There is no winning this game.

River Song

River Song smiles at the Doctor, both in evening wear at Amy’s and Rory’s wedding, in Doctor Who.

People that hate River Song confuse me sometimes more than people who hate Gwen. Which isn’t to say that Gwen-hate makes more sense, because if you hate severely flawed characters, WHY ARE YOU WATCHING TORCHWOOD, but River gives them a lot less to work with. Not that it matters, because it appears that folks draw from the same store of justifications when it comes to hating lady-characters. From Amplicate:

she is just so fuckin smug! she looks about 50 (especially in the weeping angels episodes) and shes still teasing the poor doctor about what they used her handcuffs for *shudder* i wouldnt mind seeing david tennant or matt smith use them but with her!! *shudder of disgust*. and she always calls him pretty boy and sweetie. it makes me sick, seriously. and i ABSOLUTELY HATE it when she says ‘spoilers’ in that smug voice of hers. and in dr who confidential she had to thow herself right ontop of poor matt, i bet she loved that, especially when she put her knee into matts groin continuously, which even matt admitted she did. and she was giggling away, probably fantasizing about using her handcuffs with matt.

sorry, this might be a bit harsh, but i just had to say how i much i hate the pig.

Even though River is a very different character than Gwen, we get the same string of reasons to hate her: she’s ugly, she’s a slut, and she’s smug. Let’s deal with the ugly thing first. Because, again, it makes you a douchebag, particularly when you only think someone’s ugly because she "looks about 50"*** and especially when she’sclearlygorgeous. I keep pointing this out, not because conventional beauty actually matters to liking a character, but because these characters are, for the most part, conventionally beautiful. So by arguing that these conventionally beautiful actresses are "ugly," fans capitulate to an unrealistic and problematic standard of beauty for women, one that insists that the great majorityof women (including actresses and models!) will never actuallybe beautiful, but must continuallystrivefor it. One that causes real harm. One that is used to police women who presume to attain any power or agency. Which is all to say, it is not a legitimate complaint to say that you hate a female character because she doesn’t match your definition of fuckable or beautiful. Period.

Sometimes River also gets called "whiny," but more often people seem to have a problem with her "smugness," because female characters are in a double bind, just like actual women, whether in positionsof leadership or just on the street. Act like a woman (like you have gross lady-feelings), and you’re a whiny twit. Act like a man (like you know things), and you’re a smug bitch. Observe:

I already REALLY don’t like River Song (and just why that is I still haven’t figured out) but she has been the closest thing, personality-wise, to a female "Doctor" I’ve seen thus far, and she makes me want to punch her in the neck.

Because only a dude can get away with acting like the Doctor. It’s violence-inducing when a woman does it. Like Gwen and Jack, River and the Doctor are judged differently for having the same characteristics. Acting like the leading men is not okay for female characters, but neither is it okay for them to "act like women," because then they’re whiny and girly. They simply can’t win, which is sort of the point. Hating female characters doesn’t have anything to do with some magical combination of characteristics that make female characters likeable. Rather, it has to do with misogyny and capitulating to a sexist culture, in order to show one’s credibility in that culture.

You may have noted the excessive imaginative violence in the hatred of these two characters. Fans often imagine the deathsof these characters (preferably painful) or imagine inflicting violence on them ("she makes me want to punch her in the neck"). This is disturbing, and can be explained by the ways in which geeks feel more pressure to over-act hypermasculinity. Geek boys are often picked on or bullied in school for being beta males, and geek men usually continue to feel undervalued because of their perceived lack of "manliness." Their reaction to this bullying is very often not to subvert the patriarchal masculinity standards that they fail to meet, but to overcompensate for this lack by participating more enthusiastically in misogynistic and homophobic behaviors and language. And women who exist in this culture, and want to be accepted by these geek men, will also often capitulate with misogyny as well, and show their credibility in part by refusing to connect with female characters in television.

smith asks us:

What is so frightening about women characters who display emotions? What is so terrifying about storylines that center women?

Indeed. So let’s, as geeks, start to value women, in all their complexity and variety, instead of deciding prematurely that any woman is only worthy of our contempt. There’s nothing scary about accepting that women, fictional and real, are human beings.

__________________________________________

*Actually, they usually say "girls."

**I don’t approve of the judgmental connotations the word "slut" carries with it. By using it, I’m just mimicking the language used by haters, not agreeing with the slut-shaming.

***Fuck, what is wrong with people? Are we really okay with the idea that women are just utterly unfuckable past the age of 30 or 40 or 50? I mean, really?